


sea of troubles

by wreckageofstars



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (PS Nott is everyone's mom and you can fight me), Angst, Gen, Nightmares, Speculation, pillow forts, post2x34
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 11:34:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16039670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckageofstars/pseuds/wreckageofstars
Summary: Beau doesn't dream, and so these don't count.





	sea of troubles

It's not the first time she's woken up alone, in the middle of the night. Not the first time she's opened her eyes to absolute darkness, thick and heavy. Not the first time she's jolted awake, tongue clenched between her teeth to keep from shouting. Heart hammering in her throat, spit sour at the back of her mouth, fear like an awful, spiteful thing, clawing at her insides, alive.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing, though. They're not dreams. They don't count.

They don't _fucking_ count.

She breathes out a quiet ' _shit_ ' like a mantra and fumbles her way cautiously out of the bed, moving slowly, stepping lightly on the old, polished floor so it doesn't creak. The _Lavish Chateau_ is one of the nicest places she's ever seen but it's also old as balls, and it settles and squeaks like all ancient places do, especially at night, as the heat escapes it. She doesn't want to wake Jester, dead to the world beside her in the satin-soaked bed, snoring quietly. Nugget and that fucking – _Sprinkles_ , that's what it's called, curled by her feet at the end. There's already a sour kind of guilt sitting in her stomach, a sneaking suspicion that Jester would have much rather have slept in her old rooms, with her mom, but had decided to stick with her, because – because –

Well, she's not too clear on the 'because', actually. Not that 'because' is ever really fucking clear where Jester's concerned, to be fair. But there's guilt simmering away in her gut anyway. She shouldn't have to wake up for – for whatever the fuck this is.

It's hard to clamber desperately in a quiet sort of way, but she's not a goddamn monk for no fucking reason. Swift and quiet is her M.O. even when it feels like her heart might actually beat right out of her fucking chest any second and she makes it to the window without making a sound, shifts the curtain aside with the barest _shuck-shuck_ and ducks past it to crouch in the windowsill, nose pressed to the glass like a kid. Her breath leaves foggy imprints that disappear almost as soon as they form, too fast at first, then slower. Slower. The moon outside cuts away at the dark in slices, hanging clear in the crisp winter sky, casting light in the barest sliver through the gap in the curtains. It reflects glossy on the polished floor. Sharp. Better than the thick, muggy darkness she'd been choking in. Slower. The air's thin enough to breathe again now.

“ _Shit_ ,” she says again, the word the barest hiss of breath against her teeth. “Shit.” A little louder.

They're not dreams. They don't count.

The glass is cold against her face. It's so much warmer here than in Zadash that it's easy to forget that it's still winter. But there's wind off the sea, she thinks. And it gets colder at night. The odd midnight people she catches a glimpse of through the window scurry from street to street, faces tucked into their coats, moonlight cutting sharply against their silhouettes. It's a cruel moon tonight. Bright and harsh and unforgiving. Light's meant to be sharp like that, though. So it can illuminate the truth and shit. So you can see everything you're meant to see. Know everything you're meant to know. Find everything you're meant to find.

She's never liked shadows.

It's a real shame her friends all wear them like fucking blankets. Everything they are, they can hide. But she's stuck with herself, no matter what. Sharp and bright and unforgiving. Even if some days she'd like to try being something else.

That's why it's important that Jester stays asleep. There's only so much she can smother under false bravado, especially these days. There's no shadow deep enough to hide the parts of her that are weak. No mask she can wear, no disguise she can pull on. What you see is what you get. Bright. Sharp. Molly had been like that, a bit. He had understood. He'd hid himself, but not in shadows. And any secrets he'd had, he'd also kept from himself. There was a weird kind of honesty in that. A tricky kind of truth that she could respect. That she could – miss.

She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on the top, glaring out at the moon. Imagining the sea beyond the streets in front of her, pulled at by the tide. Heart still hammering away in her chest, trying to fill the absent ache she's been trying to forget. _Stupid_.

A reedy voice from nowhere slices through the thin quiet directly into her brain. ' _Beau, are you awake? You can reply to this message.'_

“ _What the fuck_ ,” she hisses, crunching over herself to keep from leaping three feet into the air, heart leaping three feet from her chest into her throat. “What the _fuck_ , Nott!”

 _'Were you dreaming?'_ A beat. Another. _'Oh, shit. Youcanreplytothismessage.'_

“Maybe I was sleeping, you dick,” she hisses back through the quiet, twisting, peering through the curtain. Jester snores on, unaware.

 _'I heard you swearing,'_ Nott replies, that smug little asshole. _'My ears are better than yours. Caleb and I are right next door, you know. Youcanreplytothismessage.'_ A longer pause, this time, when she doesn't answer. _'It's okay if you were, you know. Dreaming. People do that. Even me.'_

“I wasn't dreaming,” she mutters out loud, even though the spell's puttered out without the invitation. But apparently Nott can hear shit through the fucking walls anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter.

“Why are you awake?” she croaks out quietly, after a minute of mutinous silence, gaze still fixed on the hanging moon. The reply is instant and she feels like an asshole.

_'Maybe I was dreaming, too.'_

For some reason that's what drags her onto her feet. Something in Nott's thin, reedy voice that she doesn't even recognize, and the faint promise in the back of her head of a gulp of whatever the fuck's in Nott's never-ending flask, and maybe that'll cut away at the dark just as good as the moon. She slips between the curtains again and leaves Jester sleeping, sneaks her way out the door, into the hallway. Stops, eyebrows raised. Yasha's right outside their room, asleep standing, like a statue. Some kind of sentinel, carved from stone, but for the flickering of her eyelids. A stone sentinel, standing watch, dreaming of islands.

She swallows roughly. Standing watch outside _their_ room. Not Fjord's or Caduceus' or Caleb and Nott's.

Could mean something. Could mean nothing. She's not about to drive herself insane trying to figure it all out.

...Not right now she's not, anyway.

She slips quietly past Yasha, who doesn't stir.

There's no point in knocking, this late at night. She opens the door to Caleb and Nott's room with a slow, grinding creak and steps inside, shutting herself in. The curtains in their room are flung wide open and moonlight floods the comfortable space, but only Nott is awake, crouched down by the window. She turns as Beau enters, eyes gleaming yellow and bright. It's a little creepy. A little comforting.

“Thought you'd both be awake,” Beau says softly, in deference to Caleb sprawled across the bed, sleeping restlessly, face toward the moon. Frumpkin and his own coat are draped across his feet on top of the blankets, and he's still wearing his day clothes, bloodied and damp. He's somehow managed to make the fanciest place they've ever stayed look hobo-esque. It looks fucking ridiculous. But she feels a bit stupid, now. An intruder, instead of a visitor. “Sorry.”

Nott never takes offence at anything though, and doesn't seem surprised to see her at all. She extends her flask solemnly.

“I knew you'd come,” she says, all teeth, and, again – endearing but still mostly creepy.

“...Right,” is all Beau says in reply, taking the flask, the searing, deeply questionable liquor burning pleasantly down her throat. Sometimes that's all there is to say. “Thanks.” She hands the flask back, trying to gauge how much of it Nott's already consumed. It's hard to tell, what with the flask being never-ending and all that shit, and Nott's eyes are always glassy and bright in the dark, like a wild animal's. Hard to read.

“You never answered my question,” Nott says, nonchalant, still crouched down by the window. She takes a swig from the flask. “Were you dreaming?”

So _this_ is the fixation of the week. She'd wondered. It goes like this, see: every once in a while she'll have a conversation with Nott that she barely registers at the time, something weird, or something weirdly boring, only to find that it's become the conversational topic of choice from now on, until – until Nott latches onto something new, she guesses. Until she's wrung everything she can out of it. Pursued it down every hallway, around every corner, like a dog with a bone. Knowing just enough will never be enough for her, Beau thinks. Again, it's almost something she could respect, that dogged pursuit of knowledge –

If it weren't so fucking annoying.

“I wasn't dreaming,” Beau tells her, knowing that won't be the end of it. Feeling briefly like an asshole again, when Nott doesn't reply. Too sharp. She softens her tone. “Were you?”

“Oh, I always dream,” Nott says, taking another swig. “I think. Caleb says most people do.”

“But you're not dreaming now.”

Silence. Neither of them is very good at this kind of subtlety. Talking around things instead of ploughing right into them. It's a little easier, in the quiet dark. Shadows make for good hiding, even if it feels a bit like cheating.

“I woke up,” Nott says, avoiding her gaze.

Right. Shit. Her eyes flit – not desperately, she's not _desperate_ – to Caleb, but he's still dead to the world, eyelids shifting. Mumbling, a little bit, but that's just what Caleb does, even when he's asleep.

Shit.

She avoids Nott's gaze in turn, because she gets it. Edges in a little closer and crouches down beside her.

“Sometimes I used to dream about finding rats to eat,” Nott says, a bit wistfully. “Or pigeons, sometimes. I thought those were good dreams.” She frowns. “And the bad dreams were always just the ones that didn't make any sense. The ones without pigeons.”

Pigeonless dreams. Weird criteria, probably, but – she gets it. Kind of.

“Different now, isn't it,” she says quietly. Roughly. Guessing, but not really.

Nott shrugs.

“I think the things I want are different now.” A beat. “And maybe so are the things I'm afraid of.” She shifts, a little closer to the window. To the moon. Glances at Beau sideways. “It's okay if you were dreaming, you know.”

 _I wasn't dreaming_ , she's going to say, for the third time. But before the words can escape quietly from her mouth, there's a rustle of bedsheets, the sound of muffled, smothered panic, and Frumpkin leaps delicately off the bed and trots, affronted, into Nott's awaiting arms. A moment goes by, too still. Another.

Caleb sits up, hair rumpled, squinting. Confused.

“Beauregard,” he croaks, harsh moonlight setting his hair ablaze, before turning to look at his cat. “My apologies,” he says, as Frumpkin washes his face with a paw, ignoring him. “I didn't mean to kick you. I was, ah, drowning. You understand.” He tilts his head, considering. “Or perhaps you don't. You were an octopus at the time.”

Frumpkin drops the paw from his face and blinks back at him very slowly. It might be affection, and it might be exasperation. Cats, man. She doesn't fucking get it.

“See?” Nott pauses in her petting of Frumpkin, perfunctory and a little rough. Unperturbed by his sudden awakening. “Caleb dreams.”

 _Yeah, no shit_ , she thinks but doesn't say.

“Drowning, huh?” she asks instead, twisting to look up at him. “Nice change of pace?” And then kicks herself. Shit. Fuck. _You asshole_.

“ _Ja_ ,” he says very seriously, after considering a moment, horrifically unoffended. “Actually.”

She lets that sit there for a minute. Sighs. “That's fucked up, man.”

He doesn't deny it. Shrugs and untangles himself from the blankets, fingers lingering gingerly on the expensive silk when it catches in his hands, like he's a little afraid to touch it. “Why are we gathered on the floor?” he asks without judgement, crouching down beside them with a pained grunt. He crosses his legs. “It's very late.”

“Beau was dreaming.”

“No, I _wasn't_.”

“Well, I was dreaming. Maybe.”

His face catches and twists at that. Bleary, smothered concern, all in a squint.

“You can always wake me up, you know,” he offers, a bit cautiously. Like he's not sure why she would want to.

“I know,” Nott says warmly. Now that he's awake she's looking at him instead of the moon, but her expression hasn't changed. “I just wanted to think a little bit, that's all. Look at the moon. People do that, right?”

He nods sagely. “It is a very nice moon,” he agrees. Still a little hesitant. A bit confused. All of this talking around shit makes her want to punch something. “Were you dreaming about anything in particular, or?”

“Not about pigeons,” Nott says, bland, cagey. And that sentence makes almost no fucking sense even with a bit of context, and Caleb has literally none, but he nods all the same. Extends a grimy hand and plops it gently on the top of her head, which she takes as an apparent invitation to clamber into his lap. Frumpkin follows. Beau settles back on her heels, weirdly gratified by the familiar oddness.

“Will you make the lights?” Nott asks, preoccupied with Frumpkin again, who tolerates her ministrations balefully, tail flicking. But he doesn't leave. Caleb tilts his head again, still confused. But he digs around in his shirt pocket for a moment and the dancing lights come flickering from his hand, rise to spin around the room. Soft and yellow, fighting with the silvery harshness of the moonlight.

Caleb's eyes follow the lights. “Were you dreaming too, Beauregard?” he asks, studiously avoiding her gaze.

“No,” she grinds out. “Shouldn't have to keep saying it.”

He frowns. “It's okay, if you were.”

“I wasn't.” She stands. “In fact, I'm – I'm going back to sleep. Right now. 'Night.”

Nott's eyes catch her own. Shiny in the dim light, hard to read, like always. “Caduceus is awake too,” she says simply. Smugly? Fuck.

“Don't see what that's got to do with me,” she say roughly. Chin out, because sometimes she just can't help herself.

Nott just looks back at her, expectantly. Waits. _Wrong,_ she doesn't say, but it's implied. Fuck.

Beau exhales through her nose, long and slow. She looks away. “Fine,” she mutters, striding towards the door. “I'll be right back.”

How the fuck Nott can even tell that he's awake is beyond her, but, whatever. Fine. Sure. Not like it's out of her way to check, exactly. Jester's mom had given them the run of the place, basically. As many rooms as there were available, anyway. They'd taken up a few next to each other on the floor underneath the top, still sopping wet, exhausted, in a stupid amount of trouble. Trouble they can deal with tomorrow, she thinks blearily, edging open the door to Caduceus' room without knocking.

He doesn't look very surprised to see her either, and she's getting a little fucking tired of this.

“Hey,” she grunts, leaning on the edge of the door. He blinks back at her slowly, the tiny fire he's set in the room's elegant fireplace crackling softly, reflecting warm in his eyes. His day clothes are drying on the mantle. The herbal smell of dead-people tea hits her nose. “Nott said you'd be awake.”

“Huh,” he says, soft hands curled around a tea cup. Clutching it a little tighter than she's used to seeing, if she's honest, which is a little weird. A little disconcerting. Caduceus is their chill guy. Their straight man, their – unflappable hippy friend. Nothing bothers him.

Or – she'd thought that, at least. Which was a bit stupid, probably. No one's uncrackable. She knows that better than all of them.

“Dreaming?” she asks, when the silence starts to stretch a bit.

“Didn't feel like it tonight,” he says quietly, gaze slipping. Beau swallows, uncomfortable. Something twists in her gut – not pity, that's a bullshit emotion, the other one, the better one – sympathy, maybe. He's thrown the curtains open, too, she notices. Maybe everyone's taken to staring out at the moon this evening. “Try again tomorrow, maybe.”

Which – yeah. Fucking weird, and also a little – weirdly sad. Fuck.

“Bring your tea,” she says, strained, resigned. “Rude not to share, you know.”

“Bring it – ”

“Come on,” she says, watching him struggle to his feet, shivering a bit in his thin night clothes. He grabs his kettle off the fire. She likes that about Caduceus. He gets with the program way quicker than the rest of her fucking friends, even when he doesn't quite know what's happening.

“Cups?” he asks.

“I'll get 'em.” She grabs them from his sack, carefully. One for each of them. “Who are we drinking?”

“Same guy as last time.” The comforting timbre of his voice is a little warmer now. She thinks of him, a forlorn, hunched silhouette by the fire, alone and afraid, and frowns.

“Good,” she says, leading him out the door. He follows, the hinges of the tea kettle squeaking softly as it moves with him. “I liked the taste of that guy. Floral.”

“He grew nice flowers.” A bit wistful, and, yeah, that's fucking weird again.

“Come on.” She takes him back to Caleb and Nott's room, with its wide-open curtains and dancing, shimmering lights, hanging in the air. It's cozy.

“Hallo,” Caleb says. Nott smiles smugly.

Beau sighs. “Am I getting the others,” she asks flatly, tired of skirting around – whatever the fuck this is. “I'm getting the others, aren't I.”

“Bring more blankets,” Nott hisses at her back as she turns to go. “And more booze!”

Beau flips her the bird as she leaves again. But it's not a a bad idea.

She passes Yasha on her way back to her and Jester's room. Pauses thoughtfully, because she's not totally sure there's a way of waking Yasha up that doesn't involve possibly getting run through with a giant sword. Ah, she'll get to that later.

The curtains are still mostly drawn when she returns, just like she left them, but Jester's sitting up, Nugget lapping at her chin sleepily.

“You weren't here,” Jester whispers accusingly, a frown pulling at her brow, moonlight striped across her blanket-covered feet. She sets Nugget gently in her lap.

“You were asleep,” Beau says, not bothering to whisper in the hope that it'll wake Yasha up a little more gently.

A pout. “I _was_.”

“How come you're not anymore?”

The run-on sentence she expects in reply doesn't come.

“Nugget woke me up,” Jester says primly, after a beat, and it's clearly a bald-faced lie. The dog licks her face, possibly in support. Possibly, Beau thinks shrewdly, so it can lap up the last of the salt drying on her face.

But she won't say anything. Bro code. Or – ho code. No, that's not any better. _Sisterhood_. That's wholesome. Probably too wholesome for any of them, but sometimes life is about taking what you can get. They've had a rough couple of days. A rough couple of – weeks. A rough month.

“Okay,” she says, not pushing. That's not what she's here for. “We're building a blanket fort. You want in?”

“ _Yes_ ,” is the immediate reply, “obviously!” Nugget and Sprinkles – Sprinkle? Sprinkles? Whatever – the _weasel_ are ushered off the bed and congeal around Jester's feet as she scoops the blankets off the mattress. “Let's go, let's go!” Nugget barks, once, in excitement, and if Beau was a better person she'd feel sorry for their neighbours. But she's not, so she doesn't.

“Go to Caleb and Nott's,” she says. “I got another stop to make on the way.”

“ _Ooh_ ,” Jester says, waggling her eyebrows, barely visible over the pile of blankets in her arms.

“Not that kind of stop.”

“Well, you know, you _are_ in the right place.”

She snorts, and then catches herself. Drags a hand down her face. It's too late – too early? - for this.

“Meet you there,” she says around a yawn, as Jester squeezes past her. Turns to close the door and meets Yasha's multi-coloured gaze, squinting in confusion. No sword at her throat. _Success_.

“What's going on?” she asks, spine popping as she straightens away from the wall. Beau winces. “Are we killing another guy?”

“Nah. Blanket fort,” she says, face straight with a force of will. “Caleb and Nott's. You in?”

It's her instinct to refuse automatically, Beau can tell. She waits, holding her breath in her chest, while Yasha looks down at her. Stone-like. Yasha, she is almost certain, has no idea what the fuck a blanket fort is.

“Yes,” she says finally, despite this.

A fist-pump would ruin the moment, so she restrains herself.

“Great,” Beau says instead. “Awesome. Cool. I'll – meet you. There.”

“Yes.”

Thumbs-up, like a dumb-ass, she turns quickly to go to Fjord's room, heat creeping up her cheeks that hopefully no one else can see. Fjord and Caduceus hadn't shared a room this time, which – a little weird, maybe. But there were only so many rooms, and Fjord is still more private than the rest of them, in a lot of ways. She gets it. Sort of.

His room is at the end of the hallway and she only knocks half-heartedly before slipping in. Pitch black, almost, and she has to wait for her eyes to adjust. Only a sliver of moon through the curtain, and now the barest hint of dim candle-light from the hallway. His stuff is also drying on the mantle, but the fire's been extinguished and only a few lonely-looking embers are left glowing in the grate.

At first she thinks he's fast asleep, but as her eyes adjust she can see that his own are moving frantically underneath the lids and his jaw is as tense as it is when he's awake. No sea water drips from his lips, but she keeps a close eye.

“Hey,” she says, from the doorway. A sharp whisper. Nothing. “Hey, Fjord.” Louder. “ _Fjord_.”

He jolts awake, bolts upright, breathing fast. Hunches over himself.

“Hey,” she says again, and as he turns to look at her for the briefest moment she's so sure that he doesn't recognize her at all. His eyes don't quite glow in the dark like Nott's do, but they gleam in the dim light from the hallway with something alien and hungry. “ _Hey_.”

He blinks, and that gnawing hunger disappears, fear sliding overtop of it.

“Beau?” he asks in a rasp, confused. “What're you doing here?”

“Bad dream?” she asks, politely. She's learning.

“Uh,” he says, blinking rapidly, uncurling himself. The fear slips neatly from his face and that, she thinks without saying anything, is why Fjord is the biggest liar of them all. “More of a, uh. More of a conversation.”

“That's fucking weird. You're fucking weird, Fjord.”

He winces and rubs at the back of his head. “Yeah. Lot of that going around this week.”

“Well, come on, then.” She jabs a thumb in the direction of the door. “You're the last asshole. Bring blankets.”

She's met with polite refusal and slight confusion and it's complete bullshit. “I was just gonna – ”

She cuts him off. _Bullshit._ “Take out your weird fucking barnacle sword and stare at the moon until morning like a broody jackass?”

His expression twists in that way that means he's not sure whether to be offended or exasperated, but he gives up halfway through and slides a hand down his face tiredly.

“Yeah,” he says, the end of the word swallowed by an abrupt, rumbly sigh, familiar. Exasperated. “Yeah, that sounds – yeah.”

“So get moving, asshole. Blankets. Sword. If it'll make you feel better.”

So guarded, all the time. Even when he's pretending like he's not. But he looks too tired to keep up the suspicion, and he gathers up the blanket from his bed and summons the falchion with only slightly narrowed eyes.

“What's this about?” he inquires, following her out of the room.

“Team meeting.”

“Bullshit.”

“Blanket fort.” She pauses. “I don't fucking know, man. I'm just doing what Nott told me to.”

“See, now that, I can believe.”

She flips him off, too.

They're greeted on arrival with the dancing lights and a distinctly un-whispered cry of ' _Oskaaaaaar,'_ and, yeah, if Jester's mom wasn't covering for them, they'd have been out on the streets ten minutes ago, easy.

“Come sit!” Jester demands, half of a satin bed-sheet caught lopsided on her horns, grinning delightedly. They're all crowded around the unlit fireplace, blankets and pillows scattered above and around them, half-heartedly held up by a chair, the bedposts, and what looks like – fuck, yeah, what looks like Yasha's sword jammed mercilessly into the hardwood. Shit. Oh well.

“If this were a real fort, we would be crushed by our enemies,” Yasha tells her, over a steaming cup of dead-people tea. “It's a very poor design.”

“Well, they're more for – comfort,” Fjord explains, settling himself gingerly beside Caleb and Nott, eyeing Frumpkin with resignation. He accepts a cup of Caduceus' tea. Nods in solemn thanks as Nott pours a bit of never-ending liquor into the cup. “Or so I've heard, anyway.”

“This is just like a sleepover,” Jester says gleefully as Beau wedges herself in between her and Yasha with absolutely no ulterior motivation whatsoever, fuck you. “You _guys_ , we should play truth or dare!”

“You know, Jester,” Fjord interjects preemptively. “Casting Zone of Truth kind of makes the dare part of that game less effective.”

“You don't know that's what I was going to do.”

“I kinda do, though.”

Over their friendly bickering, Nott catches her eye. Still way too smug, from her spot in Caleb's lap. He's fast asleep again, somehow, drooling into Caduceus' fur, the top of the fort half-collapsed in on his face. And Caduceus is still a huge, solemn silhouette, but his hands aren't white-knuckled around his cup of tea anymore. He's sitting cross-legged, tall as a tree, smiling vacantly. Presumably, that's good.

“Everybody dreams,” Nott says, and it's fucking – _cryptic_ , is what it is. “See?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Beau says, glaring half-heartedly, even though she's not quite sure she's learned whatever it is she was supposed to. “I get it.”

“No, you don't,” Nott says, smiling, taking a swig from her flask. “But that's okay.”

Her retort dies in her throat. _Whatever_. “Fill'er up,” she demands instead, snagging a free cup and holding it out in the direction of Caduceus and Nott. Tea, booze, both, she doesn't care. It gets filled with something, and as she leans back against the blankets, Yasha's unfairly ripped biceps warm at her back, things almost feel – not bad. Like they haven't in a long time. Even though they almost died, again, and even though they've fucked things up royally, again, and even though they're all so _fucking weird_ –

It's – it's not bad. She can admit that much. Better than glaring up at the moon all night, alone.

“Nott, if you don't mind me askin', why this particular endeavour at this particular moment?” Fjord asks, leaning back against the chair, taking a corner of blanket for himself.

“Blanket forts are an essential component of human pack bonding that I've always been curious about,” Nott replies easily, as Frumpkin yawns terrifyingly in her lap. She shrugs. “And also this is the first fancy place we've ever stayed in where they literally can't kick us out.”

“Can't argue with that,” Fjord nods, sword and blanket in his lap, tea in hand. He yawns.

“I think it's nice,” Caduceus says, closing his eyes. “Cozy.”

“Nott is a genius,” Jester declares, weasel draped around her neck, Nugget sprawled in her blanketed lap, snoring. “I think it's great. It's like Caleb's dome, only it's way cuter and probably no one is going to try to kill us all in the middle of the night. Probably.”

“Probably,” Beau says.

“Hopefully,” Fjord adds grimly.

“If they do,” Yasha says, thoughtful, deliberate. “I will kill them first. So you don't have to worry.”

And that's enough to put them all at ease. It's a shadowy little room, without the fireplace lit, but they all settle in. Caleb's lights bob and flicker and generally do a pretty shit job of illuminating anything, especially now that he's mostly asleep, and the moon is weaker now. Clouds moving in from the north have covered it.

She's never liked shadows. But, somehow - this is different. 

“Yasha,” she says quietly, watching through slitted eyes as the rest of her friends drop slowly into weary slumber, slumped against each other. What's left of the moon looks down on them silently from the window. “Before. Were you dreaming?”

“I think so,” Yasha says easily. “I think I always am. Were you?”

She swallows, spit sour at the back of her mouth. Caleb's dancing lights extinguish as he finally drops off completely and they're plunged into darkness. Only the watery, silvery moonlight left to illuminate, clouded now, weaker. Pulling at the sea, even still. Lots of shadows to hide in, if she wanted them. 

Fuck that.

“Yeah,” she says finally. “I think I always am.”

She settles back against Yasha, who smells like leather and flowers and the air before a storm. She closes her eyes. She dreams of pigeons.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (this might be the most 'fucks' I've ever written in anything ever and I'm?? kind of proud???) (you guys I love Beau so much)
> 
> oh man I gotta stop writing these sorts of things between episodes because I'm sure that come Thursday there's no way this'll fit into canon, but??? I don't know what to say, y'all. I needed them to build a blanket fort and only sort of vaguely address all of last week's Trauma. And I wanted to go digging in Beau's head a bit. Not sure I totally got it, but I sure had fun trying. Caduceus, too, is still kind of a mystery to me, and I'm so curious to see what his reaction to everything is this week! 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading and I'd really love to hear what you thought! Keep dreaming, dreamers.
> 
> \- W


End file.
